Photo: Andrea Nimmon

String Cheese Incident may have an unknown future but its band members have been busy continuing to create new music in unique configurations. Elephants Only Talk Occasionally (EOTO) is the brainchild of the group’s percussionists, Michael Travis and Jason Hann, and incorporates playing and looping in a tight jam pocket of improvised dance music. At The Rhythm Room, Travis sampled bass, keyboards, electronic beats, sound effects and layered lead and bass guitar lines while Hann followed on drums and percussion with electronic samples of his own—a reverse Bonsai tree-effect that opened up into multi-layered textures.

And that’s not exactly an easy thing to do (or write about with a succinct form of imagery, for that matter) because the twin-headed unit began their gig without a preplanned setlist, prerecorded tapes or handy loop archive. In lesser hands, this form of music would implode rather quickly but the two have used SCI as a fine foundation to explore some cool, new grooves without sacrificing the need to create a memorable hook. The crowd was receptive, responsive and relatively in tune with the improvisation as the teeming dance floor attested.

As the duo moved through different improvisatory sequences, there was nary a momentum shift—more of a subtle DJ’s invisible hand working the controls, like Travis introducing a new bass guitar progression that was then looped so Hann could offer up his own rhythmic dialogue. Segues led into numerous house/drum ‘n’ bass moments where Travis would also play an occasional guitar solo and suddenly, you had two multi-armed, one-man bands playing over a series of loops that continued to add colors until one of the musicians would alter the scene into a less-convoluted portrait.

EOTO proved a fascinating experiment and largely a successful one, offering an experience that is both innovative and entertaining

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